Spegel, spegel på väggen där: : En studie kring balladens textliga funktion i kvinnliga traditionsbärares liv under 1800-talet

Emma Eriksson and Christina Henriksson: Mirror mirror on the wall: A study on how ballad texts reflect women as carriers of tradition in nineteenth century Sweden, Växjö: Musikvetenskap C, 10 p 2005. The aim of this essay is to analyze relations between ballad texts and the lives of female carriers of tradition in nineteenth century Sweden. Four carriers of tradition have been chosen, connected by being informants to Gunnar Olof Hyltén Cavallius, a collector of medieval ballads in Sweden around 1850. The four women are Anna Ehrenström (1786-1857), Catarina Andersdotter (1792-1857), Johanna Gustafva Angel (1791-1869) och Wendela Hebbe (1808-1899). Their lives are seen from a women’s historical perspective. Although there are uncertainties regarding to what extent the collected repertoire of the four women reflects their repertoire as a whole, some conclusions can be drawn regarding relations between remaining ballads and their lives as women. These relations are traced in textual themes and in textual form (e.g. repetition of words and phrases). The closeness between life situation, and choice and shape of ballad texts, leads us to conclude that these occurrences are due to deliberate choices, and that the ballad text thus mirror the lives of these women